If
by Buckingham
Summary: This is what will happen if he doesn't sign the papers. Loads of ADM angst.


Title: If

Author: Buckingham

Spoilers: through Deny, Deny, Deny

Summary: This is what will happen if he doesn't sign the papers.  
Disclaimer: I own less than nothing.  
A/N: I couldn't resist a little Shepherd angst after last night's eppy. Enjoy.

- x -

The bar is noisy, crowded with off-duty doctors and nurses, thrumming with classic rock from the juke box. Shepherd sips at his beer, staring at the stark white page in front of him. He rubs his fingers against the fine print, trying to get a feel for this crazy situation, and sighs.

He knows what he should do. He sees it plain as day.

This is what will happen if he decides not to sign the papers:

Addison will flash him one of those feral little smiles of hers, and make a big show of tearing them to bits, tossing the shreds around the room like confetti. He'll smile at her typically larger-than-life reaction, remembering a hundred times before when she filled his life with star-bright presence and warm, haughty smile. She'll pull him to her then, her body insistent against his, but he'll hold back.

"Time," he'll whisper against her forehead. She'll smell like chocolate, cigars, scotch, and leather, like a thousand dark, rich things. "I need some time before…"

Her eyes will go dark with hurt, but she'll nod and kiss him chastely. They'll drink a bottle of wine together, spend the night huddled together beneath a blanket, like the lone survivors of some awful natural disaster.

Later, it will get harder. He'll force himself not to think about that night, the night when he came home and found her with someone else. Soon, it'll start to feel like what it should have been, the stuff of soap operas or the Jerry Springer show, the kind of thing that happens to someone else. Like when you tell a patient that he's got an inoperable brain tumor, and this look of confusion, disbelief, incredulity passes over the guy's face like a cloud – he understands what a brain tumor is, he understand what the prognosis is, but he cannot possibly understand that it's happening to him, in his life. That's what he'll make Addy's night with Mark become – something that couldn't possibly have happened to him, something fantastic that he saw on television or in a movie. It won't have anything to do with his real life.

Instead, he'll remember when he first met Addison, when they were just out of medical school, full of a million things to prove. He'll remember that her hair was longer then (like Meredith's, he'll think for a fleeting moment, before he pushes that thought far, far away), but even then it was always perfectly curled, pinned back. He'll remember how he admired that about her, how she was always so put together, without effort, without fretting over a mirror and fussing in the bathroom for hours. He'll remember how she seemed unlike anyone he'd ever known.

He'll remember lying beside her in bed in those early days, when the room was dark and still. He'll remember how easy it was to confess his deepest, darkest secrets to her – that he wasn't good enough, wasn't smart enough, that underneath it all he just wasn't as good a surgeon as everyone though. He'll remember how she'd rub his back then, play with his hair, whispering into his ear all the ways in which he was good, smart, perfect. He'll remember how he never had to doubt her because she didn't have it in her to play with the truth just to just because it might make him feel better. He'll remember how he loved her for that, for seeing him in a way that he couldn't always see himself. He'll remember how he never felt alone when she was with him, how she made his life make sense.

He'll remember that even though he'd never been the kind of guy who believed in silly, romantic notions, like soul mates and happily-ever-afters, he'd come to see her as the love of his life, the person who made the good times great and the bad times bearable, someone he wanted to share everything with. He'll remember how she looked on the day they married, so radiant and happy, so in love with him that he couldn't imagine it ever ending.

He'll try to remember that often.

One night, when Addison's working late, he'll get drunk. He'll find himself thinking, if Addy's the love of my life then what the hell was Meredith?

He won't have said her name aloud in weeks, so it will sound strange and exotic on his drunken lips. Sassy, little Meredith Grey, he'll think, who hogs the blankets, curses like a sailor when she's pissed, has a taste for tequila, drives as fast as sixteen year old boy, and kisses like time has no meaning, slow and deep and relentless. He'll think about how she doesn't have Addison's sharp edges, but that she's strong in her own right - tough as nails sometimes, sweet and warm as a kitten at others.

He'll remember the feeling he got in his chest that night he first took her to his trailer, like something inside him had been jumpstarted, just because she smiled and reached for his hand, because her eyes went as bright as starlight as she looked at him. He'll remember how she looked later, tangled in the sheets of his narrow bed, her hair a mess, her skin flushed with his touch and kiss, and that there was that same feeling again, like she'd healed some broken part of him just by being there. He'll think that maybe he felt it as far back as that first night in the bar, when it seemed like she was destined to become nothing more than a sweaty, drunken one-night stand. He'll remember that there was something in her sleepy blue-gray eyes when she looked at him even then, how he latched on to it like a lifeline.

He'll remember that the morning after that crazy night at the bar, when he drove into the hospital, not knowing she'd be waiting there for him, all flustered and adorable, he'd already been plotting to see her again – he knew her address after all, so it wouldn't be too difficult. He'll remember that he made love to her for the second time in the backseat of his car, and he'll wonder how that made her feel, if it seemed sleazy or tawdry to her. He'll hope not.

Later, he'll fall asleep with the bottle still in his hand, thinking If only, If only. In the morning, his head will throb and his stomach will churn, and he'll remind himself that he's not supposed to think about Meredith anymore. Not anymore.

Eventually, Addison will suggest that they see a therapist, when he still can't bring himself to really touch her because he keeps picturing her with Mark. The doctor will be entirely non-judgmental, will tell them to remember why they fell in love in the first place. Doesn't that mean something, she'll ask. She'll meet his dark, slitted eyes and reconsider. Does that mean something, she'll try again.

"Of course," Addison will say. "It's why we're not divorced."

He'll nod, but the doctor will watch him warily as they get up to leave, will suggest that maybe they come in for individual sessions next week.

At work, things will be pretty much unchanged. He'll need some time getting used to having Addy breathing down his neck again, but the OR will be the haven that it always has been for him, the one place on earth where everything makes sense no matter how fucked-up his life has become. Colleagues will comment on how focused he's been lately, how dedicated and attentive he is. The chief will make vague allusions to the fact that he's solidified his spot as heir apparent once again. The interns will clamor to scrub in for his surgeries, because he'll always be looking for something daring, something interesting, something mind-blowing, so when he gets home at the end of the night his mind will of course be blown, so he won't be remembering, he won't be thinking.

Meredith, of course, will keep her distance, as best she can. He'll be alternately grateful and disappointed. Sometimes, the look in her gray-sky eyes will make his head ache with guilt and fear and some unnamable, unpleasant thing. Other times, it will make that thing explode inside his chest again, reminding him that he is in fact alive. He'll try to corner her a time or two in dark hallways, just to ask how she's doing, how her mother's been, but she'll blow him off.

"I've got rounds, Dr. Shepherd," she'll say. Or, "Dr. Bailey's looking for me, Dr. Shepherd." Maybe "I've got lab results to pick up, Dr. Shepherd." No matter what, he'll know what's really saying underneath her polite, professional words – "Get the hell away from you, you lying, cheating, self-centered asshole."

He'll stop after Addison comments wryly, "Look like you're not her most favorite person anymore."

Days will pass. Then months. Eventually he'll be able to make love to his wife again. Maybe he'll be able to love her the way that he used to one day, even if there's something inside him that's dead, that's been dead since that night he walked in on her in bed with his best friend, that hasn't felt remotely alive in months.

Except when he was with Meredith. But he'll force himself not to remember that anymore.

He won't question himself because there won't be any point. He'll have done what he should have, what he needed to do, because of something he owes to Addison, to himself, to the people they once were, to what they were together.

Maybe someday they'll even be happy again.

That's what will happen if he decides not to sign the papers. That's how it will go down.

Shepherd looks at the divorce papers, looming large against the dark wood of the bar. Six inches of ink, drawn on the right line, and all of that goes up in smoke. There's a pen in his briefcase, a heavy silver one with his initials, a gift from Addy for some long-ago birthday. All he's got to do is reach down inside the bag and pull it out. Sign the damn paper.

He takes another sip of his beer, glancing toward the door. He half-hopes Meredith will show up, so he can take that to be a sign, to galvanize him into action. It's doubtful that Addison would show up at place like this, so waiting for her would do no good.

Meredith, he thinks. Why can't you just waltz in her right now and force me to sign this damn thing?

Squinting, he looks toward the door again, and catches George slipping inside. What is this a sign of, Shepherd wonders in amusement. George glances around the room himself, obviously looking for someone, but he stops when he locks eyes with Shepherd. He gives a sheepish little smile, but it's clear that he doesn't want to acknowledge his superior any more than that.

Grinning, Shepherd nods him over to the end of the bar. Self-torture has reached its limits tonight; it's time to torture someone else.

Tentatively, George slides on to the stool beside him. He doesn't make eye contact.

"Can I buy you a drink?" asks Shepherd.

George nods.

"Ah, a beer." He plays with a cocktail napkin in front of him. "A beer would be good, thanks."

Shepherd signals to the bartender for another round of drinks. He pushes the divorce papers aside, away from George's eagle eyes. They sit there in silence for a long moment, awkwardly, before Joe sets down their drinks.

"Come on, guys," Joe laughs. "It can't be that bad. I mean, anything outside of that hospital ain't life or death."

Shepherd smiles grimly, and George nods mechanically.

"I guess he's right," says Shepherd, after Joe's moved to the other end of the bar. "It's hard to indulge in self-pity after you've seen all the shit we have, huh?"

George shrugs sheepishly.

"I manage okay most days."

Shepherd laughs, spinning an empty beer bottle around on the bar in front of him.

"Yeah. Me too."

George glances over at him, trying to gauge his mood. He sighs, sounding pretty pitiful even to his own ears.

"Let me ask you something, George," he says.

George frowns down at his beer bottle, but nods.

"I'm pretty sure that it's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons," Shepherd says, quietly. "But do you think you can do the wrong thing for the right reasons? Do you think that's possible?"

George looks up, staring at him with cold, intense eyes.

"This is about Meredith, isn't?"

Shepherd shakes his head, a little too emphatically for his own liking.

"No, no. This is a general philosophical inquiry."

George turns, sipping his beer. "Well, if it's just a general kind of thing…" He stares at the wall behind the bar, thinking hard. Finally he shakes his head. "No," he says. "No. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Case closed."

"You don't think that—"

"I think that if you try to convince yourself of that, it's only to make yourself feel better about the choice you've made," says George. "It's just rationalization because you know you've done the wrong thing."

Shepherd nods, letting the truth sink in.

"But sometimes we've got to do the wrong thing, don't we? Even if we don't…"

He sniffs deeply, before finishing off his beer. He can tell that George is watching him, analyzing his every move. George is a good kid. He'll be a good surgeon too, once he gets over his nerves and loses the timidity that holds him back. He's got the kind of compassion that can't be taught, and that can mean just as much as the confidence that someone like Karev or Yang has.

And he loves Meredith like crazy, gazing at her like she hung the moon and stars and sun before she put in a full eighty hour week at the hospital. Sometimes, Shepherd is certain that Meredith would be better off with someone like George - some simple, sweet guy who'll treat her as if she were some rare treasure he found. But he knows that it wouldn't even occur to Meredith to look at George that way, that if anyone mentioned George's feelings for her she'd stare back blankly, convinced it was a joke. She'd probably wind up breaking poor George's heart in the end, though Shepherd doubts that's any consolation to George right now.

"Well, I should get going," he tells George, standing. "Early day tomorrow."

George nods, watching as he slips into his jacket, lifts his briefcase, and shoves the divorce papers deep, deep inside.

"Thanks for the beer, Dr. Shepherd."

"Anytime. Have a good night."

He's halfway to the door when George calls after him.

"Dr. Shepherd! Hang on!"

He turns back, meeting George's sober gaze.

"Yeah?"

"Just be sure. Be totally sure about what you're doing," says George quietly. "If you feel bad about it tomorrow or next week, next month, you can't take it back. You can't make it up to her by telling her you did it for the right reasons. It won't make her hurt any less."

Shepherd nods, frowning.

"I know, George. I know."

"Okay, I just wanted to…" He shakes his head. "Have a good night, Dr. Shepherd."

Outside the bar, the sky is indigo, full of dark clouds, heavy with rain. Shepherd tilts his head back, breathing in cold air. He stands near the curb, shivering, feeling utterly alone.

This is what happens if he doesn't sign the papers, he thinks. This is where it starts.

- x –

A/N: I'm pulling hard for a DM reunion, but I'm a sucker for some good old-fashioned angst. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
